The Mosquito and the Cat

A friend who I love very much has an annoying trait. She is a major surfer of social media and will periodically approach me during moments when I’m resting with questions about things on the Web that are trending.

One afternoon while sitting on my porch, relaxed with thoughts far from work, she walked by and called out, “Hey Doc, you’re supposed to know about these things—is there anything to the notion of E.F.T.—Emotionally Focused Therapy?”

To begin with, I usually don’t know about “these things,” but unfortunately I also have the fault of being a very curious person. In these instances, my friend is like a bothersome mosquito who makes me itch with a degree of curiosity.

My usual response to her is, “Haven’t heard too much about this—I’ll get back to you.” So once my friend departed I got up from my armchair and sat down at the laptop where my fingers began to dance to relieve a curious itch.

Truth is, there does seem to be something to E.F.T. , among which, the American Psychological Association has referred to it as a promising therapy which has a degree evidence-base.

The idea of E.F.T. is that people with psychological tension—coming from anxiety, stress, or trauma—can physically improve their mental state by rhythmically tapping on themselves at various acupuncture points.  The tapping seems to aid in the evocation of feelings and memories that are constructive as a part of the counseling process.

Another concept related to E.F.T. is that the mind and body can be treated as one, and that both have a tendency to self-heal. The above dovetails with a number of established and emerging treatments such as Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy and psychedelic therapies.

As annoying as my friend can be, she helps me get out of my armchair periodically and be open-minded.

Curiosity doesn’t kill the cat; it tends to help the cat survive- thank you my web surfing friend. A judicious interplay between medicine and lay practice can lead to synergies that contribute to advances. No better example of this exists than the story of the “Clusterbusters,” an online group of migraine sufferers. One of the members of this group experimented with LSD and reported to the group symptom improvement. Others tried it, leading to a degree of group enthusiasm that became public enough to reach the attention of a researcher at Yale, who established a formal clinical trial which has produced some promising initial results.

The public can be overly optimistic about emerging treatments, Conversely, the scientific establishment can err in being over cautious. The melding of the two however creates a balance that can be useful to society.

For the curious who want to read more follow this link: https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/Emotion-Focused-Therapy-Ch-1-Sample.pdf